Suspect Anthrax Terrorist Apparently Kills Self
I wonder if the news that the guy the FBI was about to charge as the anthrax terrorist committed suicide will dampen all the fun Patrick Leahy was having yesterday (recall that Leahy was pressuring Mukasey about the anthrax case earlier in July)? The LAT reports that Bruce Ivins, whom the FBI had just informed they were going to charge, apparently killed himself.
A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.
Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.
The suspicion on Ivins appears to stem from his efforts to secretly clean up potential contamination in the same time frame as the anthrax letters were sent.
Ivins, employed as a civilian at Ft. Detrick, earlier had attracted the attention of Army officials because of anthrax contaminations that Ivins failed to report for five months. In sworn oral and written statements to an Army investigator, Ivins said that he had erred by keeping the episodes secret — from December 2001 to late April 2002. He said he had swabbed and bleached more than 20 areas that he suspected were contaminated by a sloppy lab technician.
"In retrospect, although my concern for biosafety was honest and my desire to refrain from crying ‘Wolf!’ . . . was sincere, I should have notified my supervisor ahead of time of my worries about a possible breach in biocontainment," Ivins told the Army. "I thought that quietly and diligently cleaning the dirty desk area would both eliminate any possible [anthrax] contamination as well as prevent unintended anxiety at the institute."
From the silence of DOJ, I get the feeling we may never have a public accounting of what FBI believes happened (perhaps not surprisingly, since they just had to pay out a chunk of money to Stephen Hatfill because of their earlier blabbing). Even given the appearance that Ivins may have been trying to hide extracurricular work with this strain of anthrax, what of the mention of a technician? Did the FBI think Ivins acted alone or was there really a technician involved as well? And if Ivins sent the anthrax letters, did he do so because he was working on a vaccine and wanted to create the urgency for it? Or was it terrorism motivated by racism or hate?
And then there’s the apparent suicide. Yes, according to the LAT report, Ivins was depressed and suicidal (which would have made you think they’d keep a closer watch on him). But if I were a super-skilled biologist, I might go out with a more interesting cocktail than Tylenol and codeine. I just can’t help but think of all the suspicious circumstances surrounding David Kelly’s "suicide."
Duncan reaches his fingers back into the memory hole:
Wow. That is so shameful that it needs … reviving. (And isn’t that another example of apophasis? We had one just yesterday.)
Glenn Greenwald explores this specific question. While I am a fan of Greenwald’s work, in this instance he jumps to a somewhat dubious conclusion:
“It’s extremely possible — one could say highly likely — that the same people responsible for perpetrating the attacks were the ones who fed the false reports to the public, through ABC News, that Saddam was behind them.”
Apart from that somewhat flawed reasoning, the rest of his treatment of the issue is well worth the read.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
How is it flawed reasoning?
It is flawed reasoning because it is more likely that the government itself, outside of any knowledge or participation in the attacks, likely spread the bentonite rumors, which were the vehicle of laying blame on Saddam, and did so for their own partisan fearmongering reasons. To claim that it is more likely that it was done by the attackers (provided the attacks were not a CIA or otherspook operation) than the government is simply an overreach.
Nobody’s claiming these guys while possibly culpable are competent, right?
The person responsible for this attack (if it is the same person who grew the anthrax spores) is HIGHLY competent.
A thing that needs to be understood is this: There were at least TWO separate forms of the same genetically identical anthrax that were delivered. The first, a granular brown clumped arrangement of anthrax spores, which caused primarily topical anthrax, and a second, white and fine-milled unclumped powder, which caused most of the inhaled anthrax and most of the deaths. There may have been a third, but the envelope(s) in which it was mailed have not been recovered.
It is easily conceivable that at least three people, one extremely competent, two others marginally less so, packaged and sent the anthrax, possibly obtained from a single, fourth source.
hm. lizard, this is highly helpful info.
and why would this set of data compel you to dismiss the dick and demons as source hypothesis? or at least the singular source hypothesis, which would “more simply” lead to those who would benefit most?
again, lizard, i cannot concur. it does not follow from a ’simpler’ reason that another reason is flawed. parsimony is great in most cases, but when it comes to human behavior, i think it can actually be dangerous and foolhardy to demand it. as a psychologist, i tend to think of parsimony as a luxury when it comes to explaining human behavior.
so you’ll know, i’m not one of those tinfoilhatters who believes the dick and his demons planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, just because we know they are capable of it. in fact, my position is that this crew has proven themselves so incompetent on so many levels, i don’t think they’re capable of pulling off such a complex coordination of planning. and, consistent with your thinking on this anthrax story, it seems more likely that they just ran with the obvious benefits of capitalizing on it. still, it seems foolish to me to put an explanation that includes their full culpability ‘off the table.’
that said, your reasoning (i.e., dismiss all but the simplest explanation) would make more sense if we did not have such ample evidence of what these thugs running our country are capable of. not to mention their incompetence.
i would not say that suspecting the dick’s hand in this is THE best description of the facts, but i would also caution against dismissing it simply because you might be able to come up with a ’simpler’ explanation. clearly, we need more information, more information we’ll likely never get. in the meantime, i say keep such ideas carefully stored and don’t spend too much time or energy on promoting OR dismissing them until we can get further along in the info process.
gosh, i dunno. i found myself entertaining the same ‘leap’ you deride, that greenwald takes. sort of a version of ‘whoever smelt it dealt it’, if you will.
and with this gang of thugs, we simply cannot put it past them. when you look at what sy hersh is saying about the dick’s ideas for a casus belli for bombing iran:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..hread-885/
… that notion is truly not that far out there.
these people are crazy. they’re nuts. pure and simple. i don’t think it is even wise to forbid ourselves the consideration of such horrendous explanations when dealing with them. on top of the david kelley story, the possibility that this poor researcher was somehow involved in a more insidious effort from the top to create havoc is, in my humble opinion, just not that far-fetched.
we do have to wonder about leahy’s reaction, though, given that he clearly knows more about the whole story than any of us do, as per marcy’s cleverasever observations:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake……terrorist/
The most likely motivation is and has always been a fanatical desire to “wake America Up” to the dangers of bioterrorism. Sort of a pathetic excuse for killing a bunch of people.
It is a common opinion among several of the people interviewed by the FBI (specifically of the Boca publisher attack) who I have also interviewed that the FBI has been working the same theoretical motivation since about a week after the attacks were first the subject of serious investigation (they took some time to be detected).
The Anthrax case is big news today, as one of the scientists from Fort Dietrich has “apparently” committed suicide after having been notified that charges would be (falsely) filed against him.
http://www.latimes.com/news/pr…..2533.story
The government has already posted an entire Wikipedia page of Bruce E. Ivins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_E._Ivins
WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too suspicious.
Another bio-scientist dead…nothing to see here…move along.
Surely Dr. Zack and Donald Rumsfeld are relieved.
Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers AND DOMESTIC SPYING in U.S.
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A04
The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority “in the United States” in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today’s Washington Post.
Daschle’s disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
And then…a few weeks later…
W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 1 A group of military scientists is feverishly examining the microscopic spores of anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle for clues to a mystery that could have profound implications for the United States and its ongoing war on terror: Who made it?
August 01, 2006
Nexus: Anthrax, Zack, Gilead, Rumsfeld
On the 9/11 anthrax attacks, the mainstream media went from 24×7 anthrax hysteria to complete amnesia that the attacks ever occurred. The amnesia began as soon as all the evidence for the source of the attacks began to point in the wrong direction. It is, of course, absolutely verboten to mention the name of Philip Zack ever in discussing this glaringly obvious false flag op.
I missed this one: Philip Zack of 911 anthrax fame was employed by Rumsfeld’s biotech firm Gilead:
Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
The forms don’t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47. That’s made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.
Rumsfeld isn’t the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead’s board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2…..ision.html
http://www.democraticundergrou…..l&add ress=104×4817801
News Story identifying Dr. Philip Zack as the man caught entering the Anthrax storage area at Fort Detrick without authorization.
http://www.whatreallyhappened&…..spect.html
Conspiracy Flashback to the Ford Administration – and look who is running the ANTHRAX coverup…
http://www.frankolsonproject.o…..Artichoke. html
The conspiracy originated at the top, in the White House, initiated by Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney. It had just been learned that the CIA allegedly drugged its employee Frank Olson with LSD before his supposed suicide.
Plunger, I tried your URLs today, Sun. 08/03/08 at 11:19 a.m., and on ALL of them I either got “Access Denied” or “NOT FOUND”.
Seems you really hit a big nerve with the Criminal Crew! For my 2 cents, you’ve nailed the *@s. Really great work, keep it up.
I think Senator Patrick Leahy should have the advantage of your research; then I don’t think he would buy their BS. Please communicate with him through his senate site.
I’m very grateful for people like you. Thank you.
Busted link is here:
http://www.frankolsonproject.o…..choke.html
Rumsfeld & Cheney appear to be masters of this game
The leaders work for the oligarchs, and the oligarchs want territory, resources and control of the masses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_oligarch
Cheney and Rumsfeld are following Ledeen’s advice…which calls for nothing less than “TOTAL WAR.” Ledeen is the biggest war monger on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war
Cheney and Rumsfeld are not working for you and me. They have an agenda which you cannot even fathom, which helps to explain your lack of understanding of the path that they are on.
Picture Cheney and Rumsfeld as the heads of a crime syndicate, and assume that all of their goals contradict those of the American people. Study where they have come from and what they have done together in the past. Only then can you see them for what they are.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200403/mann
http://www.buzzflash.com/farre…..04017.html
http://www.frankolsonproject.o…..choke.html
Rumsfeld had an Israeli Operative named Dov Zakheim positioned as comptroller inside the Pentagon. Rummy announced to the world on the day prior to 9/11 that $2.3 TRILLION was missing from the Pentagon’s budget…enough to fund an entire military coup.
http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/trillions.html
In 2001 Dov was CEO of SPS International, part of System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor majoring in electronic warfare technologies, including remote-controlled aircraft systems, and the notorious Flight Termination System (FTS) technology that could hijack even a hijacked plane and land or crash it wherever.
http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/FTS
http://onlinejournal.com/artma…..1047.shtml
Too much truth?
I’ve said before that the anthrax attacks were a shot across the bow to make sure Democrats “toe the line”.
And of course there’s this:
Dropping like flies!
Suspect in 2001 anthrax attacks dies of apparent suicide –Top U.S. biodefense researcher played pivotal role in research on anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations –Microbiologist was committed to a facility in Frederick for ‘treatment’ 01 Aug 2008 One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax attacks of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said. Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator’s office in Washington, D.C. [to persuade him to vote for the Patriot Act] The death was announced to Ivins’ colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail. [See: Air Force brigadier general dies of gunshot wound 28 Jul 2008; Aide to U.S. Senator Jim Webb found dead from apparent gunshot wound 29 Jul 2008. See: Flu ‘Oddities’.]
And this is another:
“The professor’s colleagues expressed doubts about the official “suicide” explanation for his disappearance.
Then, more biologists started to die under suspicious circumstances.
The Very Mysterious Deaths of Five Microbiologists.
The body count of infections disease experts continued to climb. Connections to weapons research began to surface.
As many as 14 world-class microbiologists died between 9/11/1 and 3/2/2, and on 6/24/2 yet another microbiologist was added to the list.”
http://phoenix.craigslist.org/…..24351.html
May be interesting to someone here to look into. OTOH: I look GOOD in tinfoil.
The last time I looked this up (2006?), the count was 17.
I knew and worked with Fred Hutchins, Webb’s southwestern Va. staffer. I’m deeply distressed and mystified about his shooting death. It is impossible to believe that was a suicide, but we will have to wait for more information from the police investigation. There is absolutely nothing to connect it with the current subject. Period.
And apparently few bloggers took notice. I looked him up when I read the article and it seems Mr. Hutchins was an amazing man. So was the Air Force Brig. Gen. So was David Kelly. Did I give the impression I thought it wasn’t terrible? Sorry if it seemed that way. My flippant comment was about my suspicious mind. Not about them.
This smells.
When you last posted on the anthrax issue (the Leahy exchange during the hearing), I read a lot of links provided, and one that really struck me was the article by the guy who did writing-style analysis. His findings pointed to Hatfill in a big way, including things about the way the letters were addressed. It would have been vital to the credibility of the case to see how those could have been reconciled with Ivins’ being the culprit. And now we’ll never get the slightest idea.
The scale of the payout to Hatfill screams hush money. I think he was involved, and I think he’s being left alone so that he won’t talk about U.S. biowar experimentation.
Under any other administration, the idea that the anthrax attacks were a CIA or otherspook op would be tinfoil hat stuff. Sadly, there is nothing these people won’t do.
Hatfill and Ivins may have been working together. They may have been completely innocent. Or any combination thereof. We live in a time when the FBI is completely incompetent, and mostly in the bag. We live in a time when the highest offices in the land are peopled with liars and criminals who are never brought to account.
I am fairly sure that Hatfill’s payout was exactly what it seemed, the FBI paying the price for their incompetence. One need rarely look past genuine stupidity as an explanation. Of course, the fact that the FBI was unbelievably stupid in this instance does not absolve Hatfill of guilt, just immunizes him from punishment
Just some quick thoughts.
ABC may have had 4 separate sources, but those sources may have gotten their information from the same place. Someone would have needed do the tests for bentonite. Was it a team of people? Was it one person? Was that person Ivins?
Was the origin of the bentonite story a plot for the .gov to link the attack to Iraq? …or was the origin of the bentonite story cocked up by Ivins to take the suspicion away from himself? A story that conveniently handed to the .gov to link Iraq to the attack and give further rationale to invade.
Seems like there are some who wants to believe that the entire anthrax incident was thought up and planned by the .gov. I am positing that it could have been the work of some loony in the lab, and then the .gov took it and ran with it to implicate Iraq.
I think that the bentonite story actually leads me away from thinking it was a grand .gov conspiracy mainly because if they wanted to push an Iraq connection, they WOULD have put bentonite in the anthrax that was sent out. I’m sure the Detrick lab would have had the bentonite on hand (part of the research to test on how other countries may be making bioweapons)…why not go whole hog and replicate what Iraq does in the first place?
Long story short. Ivins may have been the crazy to send the antrax, cooked up this bentonite story to shift suspicion away from himself. .gov picked up on this to use as a rationale for invading Iraq.
ANTHRAX in 1975 – and Cheney & Rumsfeld are in the midst of it:
Did he jump or was he pushed?
I am writing this from Frederick, Maryland. I’ve just been filming, for Channel 4, a press conference in which the son of a CIA officer who died in suspicious circumstances presented his evidence that vice-president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld were, in 1975, when part of the Gerald Ford administration, involved in a cover-up of the events surrounding his father’s death.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life…..;jonronson
http://www.frankolsonproject.o…..choke.html
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2…..ision.html
http://www.whatreallyhappened&…..spect.html
A couple of notes:
The thing I find most striking in Glenn’s story today is his highlighting of an admission from Richard Cohen that he appears to have been tipped off by “a high government official” to carry Cipro (one of the best antibiotics to fight anthrax) before the anthrax attacks started. This needs a lot of follow-up, preferably with Cohen under oath.
As for bentonite: it’s kitty litter, for gosh sakes! Anyone with enough biotechnology skill to grow their own anthrax would understand the biology of infection enough to know that delivery of fatal dosages would require getting the anthrax spores to adhere to tiny particles small enough to be carried to the smallest passages in the lungs where infection occurs. Many substances would achieve this.
It seems there has been an epidemic of suicides surrounding investigations and this administration…Microbiologists, spies, a madame, nuclear scientists…This is “beyond believable” suicide rate…all individuals that those closest to them have said, “No way, this was not a suicidal person.”
Hitler gave Rommel a choice, suicide and his family would be protected or death by treason charge and death to his family…Wonder if Hitler’s “either-or” technique is still in use? I would think “Vagas odds” would be a triple bell “Yes”.
BTW Marcy, I thought BIG news only happened when you went on vacation. I go away and Bates comes back with quite the ruling…It been great to “back read” your posts. Thanks for all your amazing work.
So, no report of a last communication with Judy, Judy, Judy?
This is a good back read from 2004:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/n…..labs_x.htm
Uh, when was the last time you heard of a terrorism/murder suspect being told he was the suspect and would be arrested/charged soon? That just doesn’t happen.
I am surprised to hear that the Gov. had a new ”prime” suspect.
”Suicide” is a lot neater way to end the case than the botched embarrassing Hatfield example.
What do we know about Ivin’s politics? Was he a huge fan on the GWOT? Did he hate Democrats and the MSM? This name is news to me, perhaps he’s always been a person of interest, but I don’t recall any reporting on this.
Just another convenient wrap with this administration’s time in office rapidly coming to an end. Of course, Ivins will never get his day in Court and we must now take this government’s word that he was the likely perp. And how many cases has this government settled on behalf of the plaintiff, ala Hatfill? I can’t recall anyone else getting this kind of dough for having their civil rights abused by this administration. Given his previous ‘humanitarian’ work in South Africa with bio-weapons, I find this sudden twist most suspicious.
In an update, Glennn gives us links to some LTE’s that Ivins had in his local paper that appear to paint him as a fundamentalist Catholic. Yeah, a fundamentalist Catholic who just bought himself a one-way ticket to hell by committing suicide.
bmaz: Wasn’t Scooter warned he was going to be indicted?
Eh, I fail to see any analogy between the two situations. Scooter is not in the same universe as Ivins
When you know they are depressed, have a big bottle of gin and about 100 Tylenol 3 and your case is weak beyond belief?
The concept should be neither accepted, nor dismissed, out of hand. However, it certainly should be considered; it wouldn’t be the first time on of their schemes got out of hand. Juxtapose with the recent Hersh report of Cheney wanting to mock up Iranian attack boats and have them fire on our own ships to create a conflict in Iran. And Bush and the UN spy plane ruse. These people do think and dream of situations like the anthrax gig, there is no reason to believe they never execute on said thoughts and dreams. None.
The media is finally onto this story that the FBI after paying $4.3 million to Dr. Hatfill (he of the sketchy background that was falsified and would be frankly surreal if he had all the degrees he said he did for any M.D. on the planet). Notice how no one frantically leaked which corner FBI was turning to investigate an apartment this time.
The backstory that this individual (if he was at all involved in the mailings) wanted to cause a skin reaction so that his vaccine could be tested that I haven’t tried to rundown thoroughly–I just happened to hear Pete Williams NBC intimate that seems a little crazy as well.
There are lots of legit ways to get your medical product tested without secretly making people sick through the mail if that’s what happened.
We may never know who the anthrax mailer or mailers were, why the CDC current Chief was involved in slowing down the testing so that she could stay on the short list because she knew DOJ wanted to muck around with the samples (no doctors under the employ of the DOJ) and slow down the prompt diagnosis and treatment of people with a life threatening illness –the media never picked up on that screwup that may well have cost some of those five peoples’ lives while DOJ got in the way of prompt medical Dx and Tx.
As to anthrax there are effective vaccines. I participated in a program that is ongoing a few years back to test the dilutions that would have efficacy to immunize an individual.
In one state, doctors and nurses are so (confused about side effects) frightened of the vaccine that is legit and was offered to some of them who do emergency work that only a handful in a huge state accepted the vaccine. I was given it in 2004 as part of the testing, and found out most docs and nurses who were offered it refused because they were afraid of it.
I really hate to put on a tin-foil hat, but Dr. Ivins’ so-called suicide is deeply troubling. I can imagine many scenarios regarding the anthrax mailings. With the death of Dr. Ivins I suppose that we’ll never really know. And that’s why I find his death troubling.
The most notable mailing was to Senator Daschle, the Democratic Minority Leader in the Senate. That letter provided quite a powerful message.
Could Ivins have been involved? Yes. Could there have been others involved? Yes. Will we ever know anything about any possible others? No.
Troubling… very troubling indeed…
I like Atrios’ riff off the Greenwald article today-
In Cipro They Trusted
Glennzilla also reminds us of Richard Cohen:
The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.
Years later it apparently does not occur to American’s Funniest Pundit to ask why a “high government official” was warning media figures to start popping Cipro in the aftermath of 9/11. I can see why, at the time, the obvious interpretation would be that there was intelligence about possible biological attacks. But now that we know that the US gov’t believes that anthrax came from the inside, shouldn’t Cohen be a wee bit curious about what this warning was based on?
-Atrios 10:40
So what “high government official” had a clear enough crystal ball to tip an administration friendly mediacrat to get himself some Cipro? The same one who suggested the WH start taking it weeks before the 1st case became known?
Of course, if I were Cohen, maybe I wouldn’t want to be asking these questions.
To play devil’s advocate here, I remember a Ted Koppel series on bioterrorism a year before 9-11, presumably inspired by the Judith Miller opus so admired by Libby titled “Germs” (apparently eponymously). So public consciousness had already been seeded with anthrax, particularly among journalists.
Also, they were already blaming Saddam Hussein for Oklahoma City, not just 9-11, as well as Cuba, so fanciful and inflammatory accusations were the norm: “wrap it all up, things related and not.”
I still bet they gave this Ivins a nudge, though.
As to Cipro’s efficacy against Anthrax, it’s all about treating a patient very early on and making sure they get every possible bit of respiratory care and support they will need from the get go or it will be a lot harder to pull them out/stop irreversible pulmonary damage later and that proved true in survivers from these attacks.
After the Anthrax mailings, in a very few days Cipro was completely sold out in pharmacies in large cities. Pharmacists thought it was insane, and I did too. Guess who the major purchasers were? MDs who were thinking with something besides a brain or an infectious disease background.
Cipro and all the other drugs in the Quinolone family are notorious for allowing bugs to get resistant to them quickly. They are near the top of the list of inappropriately Rx’d meds in the US and other countries, and particularly inappropriately, promiscuously prescribed by surgeons as a group for all kinds of ailments in which they are not needed.
But hey some states in the Bannana Republic have stupidly purchased Tamiflu and stocked up on it delusionally thinking it would make a nanodent in pandemic H5N1 when the literature is replete that it builds resistance. The four drugs in the Tamiflu with the first one Symmetrel approved in the US for over 20 years would only help build resistance to pandemic flu, and would not touch it.
As it is they cost about $65/week, and have a 30-35% side effect profile of symptoms that are the same as, and more intense than those of the flu they are targeting and marketing to treat.
True. Worse yet is that Pharma profiteer in the third world by promiscuous sale of antibiotics. I bought Cipro over the counter in Bolivia and was told I could buy one or two if I wished, a dosage that would have little effect other than to enrich drug resistant pathogens. I guess many folks there don’t have enough money to buy a full course of pills — what is it, 8-10 days worth? — something like that. So, even if US doctors were smart (or do we really mean public-spirited), we will be screwed world-wide in the near future. Hard not to see that it will come back on us.
Just for the record, I don’t think Greenwald is wrong. I think that there is not enough information to assess the strengths of specific guesses, as he does. I think the water here is very muddy, and I think that is the intention of whomever is responsible for Hatfill leak among many others. Somebody is running the reverse of an investigation, with the intention of maximizing confusion. I call these efforts obfusctigations.
Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Does the government have a lot more they are not letting on (of course they do, but who knows in what direction)? The govt completely pointed the finger at Hatfill, but never termed him more than a “person of interest”. This guy they also don’t appear to have squat on really, but they term him a “suspect” and let it be known to him and others he will not only be arrested, but in fact charges with the terrorism/murders. Right before he suicides. I fully believe the man may have been a suicide risk, no problem with that, but the method he used and the too convenient by a mile timing sure sticks out. I have no idea what the truth is, but this smells in a lot of ways and odors.
I think the FBI is going to lay everything at Ivins door and close out this investigation, or at least try to, in typical prosecutorial laziness (We got him, let’s go get a beer and forget all those other annoying questions for which we have no answers).
Yeah, that is the take they are feeding the major media already. All why I don’t like this situation; it doesn’t wrap up anything, in fact it just multiplies the the bullshittery of the whole deal.
Exactly. Earlier, you said:
My answer to that is it only happens when the government thinks there are multiple people involved in the crime. Either they were trying to create a prisoner’s dilemma or they were using threats of charges against a less culpable party to get at a more culpable party (like charging Fastow’s wife in the Enron case).
Sure in a white collar deal, maybe a drug deal or other standard criminal case; but not where it would make suspected terrorists that have killed with supposed WMD desperate and free to take a deadly mass parting shot of some sort. Not if they are who they are alleged to be that is.
Well, yeah. This would only make sense of there is no continuing threat.
” But now that we know that the US gov’t believes that anthrax came from the inside, shouldn’t Cohen be a wee bit curious … “
And since we saw a pattern of attack in which New York and Washington media figured prominently. Ex ante it would have been reasonable to suppose this person was just warning acquaintances generally. Ex post wouldn’t it have been worth a little formal time?
I think that is exactly right. They pressured him, he broke in an unanticipated way, and now they have a good perp. he is dead, so he can’t object, deny or tell tales.
Heh, a new take on the old cop concept of “clearing paper”. Wonderful. Or not.
Exactly, but how would the government know that there was no continuing threat unless they were somehow in the middle of it? My take is the whole anthrax gig is either one evil diabolical plot, or the most inept terror investigation ever (and that is saying something; see: Miami dudes who couldn’t afford tennis shoes or a cell phone). Inspector Clousseau is Sherlock Holmes compared to these guys either way it would seem.
anyone listening to randi rhodes? she’s been discussing the anthrax situation re. a lebanese man now a U.S. citizen who bought a lab in michigan that gave him access to the exact strain of anthrax used in the attacks and sold some of it to saudi arabia (prior to the attacks).
before coming to U.S. the man worked for citibank in saudi arabia in mergers & acquisition.
didn’t hear the source she’s citing, wondered if anyone else caught it.
I think the whole thing is a mistake. I think the CIA was running a test op with a fairly harmless (in relative terms) pathogen that could be tracked easily through required reporting through CDC. They hit the Weekly World News in Boca, and maybe a few newsies in DC, but 9-11 blew it into a national crisis and everything since, including the later letters were a cover for an op gone bad.
But that is all rank speculation.
[FIRST OT: Just so someone doesn’t later decide I’m being sneaky, I’ll say up front that I’m not new here — just was unable log in on FDL for the past month — but am the old CSCLA reborn as oboblomov. Long story — finally got a gmail account so that I could receive the necessary replies from FDL that apparently weren’t getting through the ATT-Yahoo filters of my first ISP account. This experience reveals a certain amount of paranoia (in me as well as FDL??) that may or may not be warranted.]
And now on topic:
The anthrax attack is especially interesting to me, not only because I spent most of my adult life working as a microbiologist (I think about 34 years), and because starting as a student in the mid-50s and continuing through to the end of my career I met a fair number of scientists who self-identified their associations with Fort Detrick/USAMRIID. My interest also stems from amateur “sociologist” pretensions — as an indicator of the rising acceptance of secret conspiracy in explanations of major events in our collective history.
Pleased to see the rise in skepticism about the motives of the Dark Side (in which FtD is qualified — in my book, anyway). I understand the reasons why, but take exception to the tin-foil hat references. Conspiracies exist. No need to apologize for saying it. It seems to me far more plausible as a starting hypothesis that more than one person would be involve in the anthrax attack. What really puzzles me is why, and how did it come about that the FBI announced their conclusion that the attack was home grown? It suggests that someone(s) had/were ready to spill the beans – people who couldn’t easily be discredited/neutralized – that the cover of the operation was blown. You have discussed this topic here before and probably hashed over the role of Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, but as I recall she announced – very early on – her belief that FBI knew the identity of the perp and and belief that they probably wouldn’t “solve” the case. At the time I figured this was probably because too many prominent people — at FtD — were involved. Rosenberg’s scientific credentials were respectable which made her a highly credible authority. I’ve not followed her history since then but a quick google tells me that a certain amount of criticism and character assassination followed her announcement. Chalk it up to neutralization, I’d say, but I really have to look into it.
As for Ivins death, the things suggested and hinted in the blog and those comments that I’ve read, seem plausible. Very good discussion. High powered scientist or not, Ivins like many of us older folks with a smattering of apothecary lore would probably know that one of the most practical and painless ways to off oneself is with barbiturates and booze (reminds me of a joke, but I’ll spare you). In his work Ivins would probably have easy access to the former. But then people don’t always want the easy way out. I had a colleague who killed himself by mainlining cyanide. We have two other plot possibilities: FIRST He could have been killed and the murder disguised as suicide. This would be risky but not unthinkable. It would depend, I suppose, on the severity of hypothetical transgression against hypothetical conspiracy. Are there people who actually do these things? RQ Only in other countries?? RQ SECOND He committed suicide and the FBI and DOJ figured it was safer to hang it on a dead guy than a live one. That of course remains to be seen.
National security issue.
Intelligence-related matters.
Meticulous planning, superb execution.
Accused likely to possess highly-classified information of bio-warfare.
Why would anyone want him dead?
Crazed, lone nut. Of course.
Ivins sounds to have been a devout Catholic, and if so then suicide would have meant choosing damnation. (Pause for emphasis.)
To take the darkest view, just to test the hypothesis: If they got Ivins to mail the spores for them in 2001 (or else provide the spores for whoever else did the letters and mailing), and then kept him on staff and quiet for all these years, then why was the DoJ/FBI investigation in a compromised DoJ ever allowed to narrow in on him? Either some investigation team was actually somehow doing their job in there — unlikely, we would have to conclude on the basis of all the other stalled investigations — or else it was random (also unlikely), or else some interest was directing this, and something changed after all this time.
One odd thing I noticed in the CNN online coverage was that Ivins had a restraining order slapped on him last week. The hearing would have been yesterday and Federal grand jury testimony was to have occurred today:
One can’t help wondering whether Team Dick got nervous either that their boy, always a bit of the eccentric genius type, was going astable on them and in danger of spilling the beans, or else that something would come out in the GJ.
Then I suppose there’s the even darker view that now that they know they’re losing the Presidency and the DoJ, they won’t be able to use their boy any more, so despite his invaluable service and loyalty it’s time to tie off that particular loose end, lest it unravel after 1/20/09 when the new blood starts flowing into DoJ.
This would I guess imply that if Hatfill weren’t innocent (and I’m not concluding he’s not, just working out the logic of the scenario), then they at least believe the silence they bought from him looks to them like a more reliable silence than Ivins’ turned out to have been.
Suspicious suicides seem to be epidemic